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Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's 2012 State of the State Address

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's 2012 State of the State Address

February 23, 2012

President Cullerton, Speaker Madigan, Leaders Radogno and Cross, Attorney General Madigan, Secretary White, Comptroller Topinka, Treasurer Rutherford, Members of the General Assembly, distinguished guests and fellow citizens of Illinois, I’m here today to report to you on the state of our state.

But before I begin, I know I speak for all of Illinois in wishing our Senator Mark Kirk a speedy recovery. We’re all pulling for you, Mark.

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And I also know I speak for all of Illinois and all of America in thanking our servicemembers in every branch of service who have volunteered to protect our democracy.

We’re here today because of you.

We are especially proud of the servicemembers of our Illinois National Guard. In the early morning last December 18, a convoy of the Illinois National Guard’s 1644th transportation company led by their commander Captain Michael Barton, crossed the desert of Southern Iraq into Kuwait.

Their unit had made 73 dangerous convoy trips between Kuwait and Iraq.

They drove nearly 4 million miles. Their convoy was one of the very last to leave Iraq. The war was over.

And today, Captain Barton’s wife Kelli, and their daughter Myleigh are with us.

On behalf of a grateful nation and a grateful state, thank you Kelli, thank you Myleigh, thank you Captain Barton and thank you servicemembers of the Illinois National Guard.

You are our heroes.

I’m very proud to be the Commander in Chief of the Illinois National Guard and I’m proud to be governor of Illinois.

Almost exactly three years ago to this day, I took the oath of office at this podium during one of the darkest moments in Illinois’ history.

One former governor was in jail. Another was under arrest, impeached and removed from office.

Both my predecessors had disgraced themselves and brought profound embarrassment to the people of our state.

At the same time, our entire nation was in the throes of a massive economic crisis, caused by disgraceful conduct and greed on Wall Street.

Our large and small businesses were reeling.

Our automakers were in dire straits.

Across Illinois, families were losing their jobs, losing their homes, watching their savings disappear.

We were off course and adrift, lacking leadership, and weighed down by a culture of corruption.

On the day I became Governor three years ago, I promised to restore integrity to Illinois government.

And we have.

Through tough new ethics laws, campaign finance reform, and establishing the ability to recall a corrupt governor, we have made Illinois a more ethical state.

But we didn’t stop there. By legalizing civil unions, by raising the standards of nursing home care, by abolishing the death penalty and by protecting the funerals of our military men and women who gave their last full measure of devotion to our democracy, we have made Illinois a better state.

All the while, we have helped everyday people by building and growing Illinois.

We have invested in our state, making it a better place to do business.

And we have invested in the people of Illinois, helping our working families and improving education.

The results are in from major export growth and the largest public works construction program in state history to solid gains in education.

We’re back on course - Illinois is moving forward.

Now we all know that the economic storm is far from over. While we have downsized Illinois government more than ever before, we continue to face very difficult decisions to restore financial stability to our state.

Suffice it to say, we must have Medicaid reform and public pension reform in the coming year.

We took the first step on pension reform in 2010 when we enacted landmark changes that will save taxpayers billions of dollars.

But there’s much more to do.

Fixing the pension problem will not be easy, but we have no choice.

We must do it together in a way that is meaningful, constitutional, and fair to the employees who have faithfully contributed to the system.

That’s why I’ve assembled a pension working group to propose a solution that can be enacted this year.

I will have more to say about these serious matters during my budget address three weeks from today.

But we must always remember that strong economic growth is essential to resolving our fiscal challenges.

Cuts alone will not get us to a better budget. We must build and grow our Illinois economy like never before to keep Illinois moving forward.

In the past three years, we’ve worked together to strengthen our economy and make Illinois a better place to do business.

We’ve reformed our workers’ compensation system. The reforms we put in place will protect the safety of our workers and save Illinois businesses at least a half billion dollars every year.

And we’ve worked with our union partners to overhaul workplace rules at McCormick Place to lower the cost of conventions.

Already, new conventions are picking Illinois and putting our people to work. Each of these landmark reforms shows the power of bringing everyone to the table to repair broken systems.

That’s moving forward.

But we’ve not just made Illinois a better place to do business, we’ve also invested in our public works – our highways, our bridges, our railroads and our schools – to make Illinois stronger.

We’ve created good-paying jobs while laying the foundation for future growth.

Thanks to our Illinois Jobs Now! plan, Illinois has the largest capital construction program in our history.

Over the past three years, we have been building, repairing, and modernizing.

Every day, you see the fruits of our labor... all across Illinois.

We have improved 5,948 miles of highways and 842 bridges.

In southern Illinois, we’re building new lanes on Route 13.

In Rockford, we’re building a new Morgan Street Bridge.

And in East Peoria, we’re building Technology Boulevard.

We’ve also built and renovated more than 400 schools from Western Illinois University’s new riverfront campus in Moline to the new Transportation Education Center at SIU in Carbondale and from the repurposed Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb to the new electrical and computer engineering building at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

We’ve also invested in more than 40 public transportation projects.

We’re working with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to rebuild the CTA’s Red Line. We’re working with Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey to build new passenger rail from Chicago to Rockford. We’re working with elected officials in the South Suburbs and Will County to build a new airport.

And we’re building high-speed rail from Chicago to St. Louis and a new bridge across the Mississippi River.

All these projects and many more have created thousands of jobs.

Thank you to the men and women of Illinois who are doing this hard work.

Here in Illinois, unlike other states in the Midwest, we believe in the right of working people to organize.

Your hard work is why Illinois is moving forward.

Speaking of hard work, I would like to salute Secretary of State Jesse White. For the first time in history, we kept fatalities on Illinois highways below 1,000 for three consecutive years.

Thank you Secretary White for your commitment to highway safety and saving lives.

Now, we all know that automobiles are essential to the success of the Illinois economy.

Our automakers and their suppliers are thriving today because state government has helped meet their needs.

Three years ago, the Ford plant on the South Side of Chicago had only one shift.

In 2010, Ford added a second shift and now they have started to hire for a third shift. Thank you, Ford.

Tomorrow I’m traveling to the Chrysler plant in Belvidere to announce the creation of hundreds of new jobs to manufacture the new, 21st century Dodge Dart. That's moving forward. Thank you, Chrysler.

The reason that Ford and Chrysler are creating new jobs here is because of our skilled workforce.

Illinois is not only a land of skilled workers. It's also a land of creative entrepreneurs.

People like Karrie Gibson and her company, Vintage Tech Recyclers in Romeoville.

Illinois is also a land of technology. We’re in the process of laying 4,100 miles of new broadband fiber optic cable to light up 5,000 of our schools, libraries, businesses and hospitals with world-class information networks.

We started Illinois’ first venture fund to encourage investors to jump into cutting-edge technologies.

We’ve renewed the Research and Development Tax Credit, which helps businesses bring new ideas to market.

And our Innovation Council launched an Open Data Initiative which has made more than 5,200 Illinois data sets available online.

We’re going to lead the nation in putting more public data online – in one place – from communities and universities across the state.

Already, young innovators like Touré McClusky and Elizabeth Park have designed smart phone apps using our data to help everyday people.

That’s moving forward.

Thank you, Touré and thank you, Elizabeth.

We’re going to continue to think big in Illinois.

Today, I’m announcing a $2.3 million dollar investment in “1871,” a new technology center at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago to foster and launch digital start-ups.

Today, I’m also announcing a $6 million dollar statewide competition to build ultra-high speed broadband in neighborhoods across Illinois.

Through this challenge, we want our neighborhoods to become Gigabit communities with Internet connections more than 100 times faster than today!

Our goal is to build smart communities that will foster the job engines of the future.

Illinois is already a leader in green technology.

We lead the nation in operating wind turbines with 404 and growing.

We're also working with Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, to develop the next generation of energy efficient batteries.

Even as we’ve fostered innovation and the industries of the future, we’ve also increased export opportunities for Illinois businesses to move their goods to new global markets.

The Illinois economy is the 18th largest in the world – and our state has tremendous potential to grow a whole lot more.